The Emperor's authority and the nobles' power were inversely related.
When Imperial authority grew stronger, the nobles were suppressed. Conversely, when the nobles strutted about, the Emperor became a cowering figure.
In truth, it did not matter much to me which side held sway.
My goal was to clear <Jjam Academy>, not to restructure the Solarian Empire's balance of power.
Put differently.
'If anyone gets in the way of my clear, I will take them out.'
Even if I had to twist the Empire's entire balance of power to do it.
And for me, who had started with the Academy seed in the capital of the Solarian Empire.
The Nobles' War—born when the nobles' power swelled so greatly that they began fighting among themselves, and destined to become the signal flare for the Empire's fall.
And the bad ending it caused had to be prevented.
To that end, the hereditary nobles who caused the Nobles' War were cancer cells that had to be the first onto the operating table.
“Greetings, you half-measures.”
A deliberate silence is no different from the screams of one's opponent.
Therefore, at that moment, the Great Hall was no different from a colosseum resounding with cheers chanting my name.
“You there. Sons of concubines, bastards, and all the rest who think I am not talking about you. I called you, so pay attention.”
Some freshmen stared with their eyes wide in shock, while others merely opened and closed their mouths.
The rest had flushed red with shame.
They were not the audience I was after.
'They do not have any authority.'
Those who had entered the Academy as if they had been driven from the families they were born into held no authority of any kind.
That was why I paid no mind at all to the ominous atmosphere of people who looked ready to storm the stage at any moment.
There was only one person I wanted in my audience.
Solarian III, who was likely hiding somewhere in this Great Hall and watching the entrance ceremony.
“Are you angry?”
Of course, not even his shadow could be seen in the Emperor's seat that had been prepared in the second-floor VIP section.
Even so, there was little chance he was not here.
“If my words just now angered anyone, throw a stone at me.”
The perpetually suspicious Solarian III I knew never moved according to a set schedule.
He was always twisting schedules as he pleased, claiming that aside from fears of assassination, true loyalty could only be tested in unprepared situations.
“Why do you not even become angry?”
That was why I raised the intensity of my speech as much as I pleased.
Outwardly, I was merely an ordinary incoming student who could not even dream that Solarian III might be attending the entrance ceremony.
“Since you seem not to know the answer, I will tell you. You cannot get angry because you are boars and sows whose futures have been neutered.”
“S-Student Lloyd Schultz!”
“What are the guards doing just standing there?! Why have they not dragged him off already?!”
Naturally, a few Academy officials who were frothing at the mouth pointed at me midway through the speech.
“I stand corrected. Your futures were not neutered. You neutered yourselves!”
As the guards crept closer, I hurried behind the podium and continued.
“You ran from your families, ran from the Mage Tower, ran from the merchant companies, ran from the Church, and ran from every competition in this world, until at last!”
CRASH!
At the same time, I kicked the podium once to stir the atmosphere appropriately.
“You were reduced to waiting vaguely for the slaughter called graduation, in this garbage-dump of an Academy, this false paradise with a four-year shelf life!”
THUD!
It sounded like someone remarkably similar to Wegner had finally fainted and fallen over in the second-floor VIP section, but I did not bother to check.
My real speech was only beginning now.
“Show of hands.”
Hereditary succession completes power.
Emperors, kings, nobles, even cardinals and archbishops of the Church.
They complete the picture of power by passing that power down to their successors.
“Anyone here who thinks he is truly less capable than a house's legitimate eldest son, who merely happened to get lucky with his parents and happen to be born to the legal wife!”
Conversely, if inheritance was not properly carried out, power could not help but become unstable.
The house, power, and wealth one had painstakingly built could all pass into another's hands.
That was why every holder of power placed greater importance than anything else on straightening out their line of succession.
Those who failed to do it properly disappeared into the back pages of history after getting stabbed or poisoned in their later years.
That was why.
“Any loser who thinks he is genuinely less capable than that goddamn heir, raise your hand of your own accord!”
Most hereditary nobles of the Solarian Empire sent their children from concubines and their bastards to the Academy.
Those ‘spare heirs’ they had kept around in case the legitimate eldest son died before reaching adulthood.
Lost all their value the moment the legitimate eldest son safely approached adulthood.
They did not merely lose their value. Their very existence became a factor that could disrupt the line of succession.
“No one? Look around you yourselves. Is there a single student with not even one finger raised, much less an arm?”
The nobles' power grows too great, the Nobles' War breaks out, and the bad ending arrives.
Then I die.
To prevent that disaster, I needed to raise Imperial authority so the nobles could not pull any nonsense.
Then how could Imperial authority be raised?
The answer was, ‘I don't know.’
'If I knew that, I would have become Emperor long ago.'
But there was one thing I knew for certain.
How to shake and weaken the nobles' power.
“Then why did you run?”
The Emperor's authority and the nobles' power were inversely related.
So one way to raise Imperial authority was to strengthen Imperial authority itself.
“Deep down, you are thinking, ‘Ah, I am not any worse than that bastard.’ So why did you tuck your tails between your legs and run?!”
But lowering the nobles' power would naturally raise it.
The way to lower the nobles' power was simple as well.
Disrupt the line of succession.
History, both in the East and the West, had proven through countless cases that it was a certain method.
And that line of succession.
“Because you are a son of a concubine, because you are a bastard, because you lost out in status.”
The Academy freshmen who were glaring at me as though they wanted to kill me on the spot.
I intended to shake those future seedlings of succession rebellions, steeped in the blood of hereditary nobles, by whispering dreams and hope to them.
“Do you think I asked because I really do not know that? Of course I know. I may know it better than anyone here.”
They had been born as children of the same father, or the same mother.
Yet merely because one side's status was different.
They had been conceived on others' whims and discarded on others' whims.
Even so, if only they were given the chance, they could prove themselves and carry on the family line.
Surely, they had entertained that futile, pathetic fantasy at least once.
“But are you really satisfied with that?”
Those poor half-measures would become the sparks of rebellion I set throughout the Empire.
Those sparks would blaze through the territories of the hereditary nobles who had dared to deceive the Emperor and threaten my happy, healthy life.
Imperial authority would naturally be strengthened, and the Nobles' War, in which bloated nobles battered one another until the Empire collapsed, could be blocked at its source.
Of course, that was only if they moved as I thought they would.
But.
“Are you really satisfied with a life where you cower before other people's looks and opinions, settle for second or third place, and are even driven from the territory where you were born?”
I was certain of this.
At least a fair number of them would be unable to resist the temptation I whispered.
'Because I have experienced it too.'
Lee Seong-min, a third grader who had become an orphan overnight, had already experienced it.
How painfully bitter it was when social perceptions changed despite my having done nothing wrong, and when discrimination was carried out subtly, or at times openly.
And how, in those moments, knowing that there was nowhere to turn made blood and pus pool deep in one's chest.
How miserable the end of the fantasy was, that one day my parents would open the doors of Sacred Light Orphanage and come take me away.
I had already experienced it.
“Of course you are not. So struggle.”
An orphan could extend a hand to sons of concubines and bastards.
Someone who had suffered discrimination knew where it hurt more.
It was a pain and scar that those who had never been orphans could not even imagine.
“Why can you not stand tall and speak! Say, ‘I can do it too! I am your son, I am your daughter!’ Can you not shout it out properly at least once?!”
However, not all of them would respond to me, and I had never expected them to.
“If you are truly choosing a successor for the sake of the house, the Mage Tower, the merchant company, the Church, or the organization!”
Most of their expressions alone said, ‘Is that bastard insane?’
“At least say that you are confident you could do better than that bastard who merely happened to get the right bloodline! Worry later about whether it will work or not, and just say it first!”
But as I had said before, my speech was not for the majority.
“You must be afraid. If you voiced such an ungrateful and presumptuous sentiment, even the pocket money and support your family sends for appearances' sake would be cut off. But do you know something? The moment you graduate from here, that money and support will vanish like a mirage anyway. If anything, now is the best opportunity. While the august Head of House's last scraps of one-sided guilt have not yet been cut off, you might at least have some room to press your luck.”
Just as lawmakers work not for the country, but for their own constituencies—and, within them, only for the people who will vote for them.
“In that respect, coming to this Academy in the imperial capital was one of the few excellent choices you have made in your lives.”
I, too, was speaking to someone who could help me: on the grand scale, Solarian III.
“Why? Because even washed-up half-measures like you, if you prove your ability, can receive important posts in the Empire from the great and wise Solarian III! This Academy, which His Majesty the Emperor himself watches over, is where you can take your first step toward winning your house's banner and seal!”
On a smaller scale, it was a speech for the half-measures who would yield to my temptation and possess the skill and nerve to rebel against their own houses and their legitimate eldest sons.
“Work like dogs until you graduate, and endure like oxen! Prove for yourselves that they were wrong, that you are far better and more capable than that bastard!”
That did not mean I expected them to come find me the instant this speech ended and say something like, ‘Give me a warhorse! I will sweep away my house at once.’
That was not confidence or ability. It was simply madness.
All I wanted was to leave a small mark in their hearts.
“And with me! Devote yourselves and fight to win for the majesty of Solarian III, the heaven-sent master of the Empire—powerful and righteous, before whom the kingdoms tread carefully, the Church pays court, and the martial world of the Central Plains across the sea trembles—and for our Empire!”
When a person who had been born a son of a concubine or a bastard was driven to the capital's Academy, which they were visiting for the first time in their life, and had to continue an unwanted competition.
While the legitimate eldest son, who had simply met good parents, lounged around in the territory and would inherit everything when the time came.
The moment that fact became truly unbearable.
“This concludes the speech of Lloyd Schultz, the new-student representative. Thank you.”
I wanted to leave a mark that said I could offer an ‘alternative.’
***
The Academy's Great Hall was so silent that it felt as though the very concept of noise had been deleted, leaving only silence to scream.
The students on the first floor murmured a little, at least, but the dignitaries on the second floor could neither stand nor leave their seats.
That was because.
“That was an exceedingly impressive speech.”
Someone had monopolized every voice they might have made.
He stood under the watertight protection of the Imperial Guard Knights, with the chamberlain at his side.
“What is that student's name?”
“......L-Lloyd Schultz, Your Majesty.”
“So the student who urged the Academy freshmen to return to their territories and start rebellions is named Lloyd Schultz?”
“Th-That is......!”
“I believe I saw that name on the Imperial Patronage Association scholarship-student list you submitted.”
Solarian III, the Emperor of the Empire, kneaded Wegner's shoulder with a smile that gave no hint of his thoughts.
“Interesting.”
Wegner and everyone around him were crushed beneath the Emperor's oppressive aura.